Computer based collaboration tools, which allow two or more remotely located users to simultaneously view data and communicate over a computer network, allow remotely located users to conduct online meetings. Just as in face-to-face meetings, the ability to take notes is important in online meetings for the purpose of capturing the events, issues, action items, and decisions made during the meeting. In the past, notes taken by participants of an online meeting are typically taken individually by the various meeting participants and then distributed via paper memos or email. The current computer-based note-taking capabilities are problematic for several reasons.
First, current solutions often do not capture enough context to understand the note (e.g., the issue or decision made during the online meeting). This is due in part to the fact that notes are often limited to text, missing important graphical information about what was being discussed (such as the state of the computer display) at the time the note was taken.
A further problem with current note-taking solutions is that captured notes are usually unmanaged, meaning that there is no way to query the system for decisions made at a meeting or about a particular subject or for action items assigned to specific people. It is often difficult to track the status of notes, such as the status of actions items.
Yet a further problem is that different participants take notes that often disagree with each other. This is especially true in the case where each participants' notes cannot be easily displayed to the other participants.
Accordingly, an improved online note-taking technique is needed that supports the capture, storage, sharing, management of, and extraction of information from notes generated during an online meeting.